Turning Page
by soulofair
Summary: Ms. Adler meets Mr. Holmes, and nothing is ever quite the same. AU
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Hello again! Still in the process of working through other stories, but couldn't get this out of my head. I'm thinking this won't be nearly as long as the other stories I have going right now, but it will be multi-chaptered. Anyway, I don't own the rights to Sherlock, don't own the characters either. All rights are reserved to Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, Arthur Conan Doyle, the BBC, and any other group that I have not mentioned.

* * *

Irene Adler walked down the long, dreary hallway towards the room at the end of the hall. She was meeting a patient of hers, a man in his late thirties who was nearing his death. Irene hadn't had much time to look over his file; the facility had contacted her, requesting her services immediately. Apparently, something with this particular case was abnormal and they needed her expertise.

She knew very little about this man, her patient, and she was only mildly enthused about this case. Irene was used to working with older people, helping older patients, usually from hospices, bridge the gap between life and death. She generally avoided cases like this, where the patient was younger than forty, simply because they were too much to handle sometimes. But the facility was desperate and she figured that maybe this one would be different.

She opened the door to a bland room, seeing her patient standing at the window. He was a tall, slender man who clearly was on the last legs of his life. Through his shirt, Irene could tell that he was little more than skin and bones. These were the patients that she dreaded seeing the most; at least with the other patients, they looked like they still had a little more life to them. This poor fellow, obviously alone in life, turned to look at her with a pained expression. "Ms. Adler, I presume?" he asked her.

"Mr. Holmes," she replied as she offered her hand to shake his.

He eyed her hand warily, but shook it with an unexpected strength. "So, what now?" he asked her as he began to visually calculate her.

Irene glanced down at her files. She knew he was reading them too, even though they were upside down from his perspective. "Mr. Holmes, you shouldn't be doing that," she murmured.

"There's nothing in those that I don't already have some awareness to."

"Even so, they aren't meant for your eyes."

He snorted. "Ms. Adler, there are many things in this world that aren't meant for my eyes. But that doesn't mean that I pay any attention to that."

"So I've gathered," she murmured.

The man had a strange glint in his eye, one that was uncommon for men in this stage of life. Irene could see that there was life still within this man, even though the time he had left was betraying him. "I happen to know for a fact that my first name is on that sheet. I would prefer that, from this point forward, you refer to me by my first name. Mr. Holmes makes me sound much older than I actually am."

Irene flipped through the paperwork until she found the first page. "Sherlock?" she murmured. "What sort of name is Sherlock?"

"Mother found it to be fitting."

"What was considered unfitting?" Irene chuckled.

"Edwin."

She glanced up at this man and saw that he was grinning at her. "Forgive me for sounding rather crass, but for a dying man, you certainly have quite the cheek."

"Dying is for lesser men. I'm not a lesser man yet."

"Certainly," Irene agreed.

"Irene, is it?" Sherlock asked as he turned back to the window.

"Yes…" she answered with uncertainty.

"Your name comes up often around here."

"I have had a great number of patients from this facility."

"Are they all as mental as they make us out to be?"

"Some of them are," she answered.

"So, how am I going to get out of here? Have you got a car around back?"

"I have to do my preliminary analysis and from there, we can figure out what our course of action will be."

"Of course. I've been here ten years… what's a few more days?"

"My thoughts exactly," Irene hummed as she sat down in the chair near the window. "So, I'd like to start out by asking whom I should be contacting. The staff says that they don't have any contacts to release you to."

"John Watson," Sherlock answered. "221B Baker Street. Contact Mrs. Hudson for more information. John has likely moved out of the flat, but Mrs. Hudson will have information about John's whereabouts."

Irene left that afternoon, armed with information that would ultimately make her job a little trickier and make Sherlock all the more interesting to work with.


	2. Chapter 2

It took several hours in order to find this 221B Baker Street address, but once she did, Irene was rather disappointed. Sherlock had made the address sound as though it were this beautiful set of flats. From what Irene could tell, it was just a bunch of shops. Despite the fact that she was dealing with a mental patient, Irene decided to give Sherlock the benefit of the doubt. Mrs. Hudson seemed as though she could have been a real person.

She entered the little café on the ground level of the building, asking for a Mrs. Hudson. The girl at the counter looked at her with a strange look, but left the counter to go retrieve something. When she returned, she handed a phone to Irene. "This is Mrs. Eliza Hudson. She is the landlady of this building, but doesn't live here," the girl explained.

"Thank you," Irene replied as she took the receiver. "Yes, Mrs. Hudson? My name is Irene Adler and I am the therapist of one of your former tenants, Sherlock Holmes."

Irene was on the phone for a few minutes, but by the end of the call, she was farther away from being able to help Sherlock than she was prior to her phone call with Mrs. Hudson. As it so happened, Sherlock had never lived in the Baker Street flat, and the only knowledge Eliza Hudson had of the man was a vague recollection of the story of his jump from St. Bartholomew's Hospital ten years earlier.

For some reason, Irene felt sick after speaking with Mrs. Hudson. She had no idea how Sherlock knew to connect 221 Baker Street to Eliza Hudson because there really was no way for him to connect those two things. She couldn't go back to the mental facility and tell Sherlock that he was wrong, but she had to. He had seemed so certain that this was his life, and now she was poking holes in it.

When she returned to the facility the next day, Sherlock was sitting in the corner, reading the paper. "How was Mrs. Hudson?" he asked her hopefully.

Irene smiled sadly at him. His smile dropped from his face. "Oh god… has she died?"

She shook her head as she sank down in the chair next to his. "Sherlock… she didn't know who you were… except for a vague recollection of the story of you jumping off the building."

He exhaled. "Shit…" he muttered as he dropped the paper in his lap and began to run his fingers through his oily hair.

"What?"

Sherlock let out a shaky laugh. "I was so certain I knew her. I was so certain I lived there."

"What about John Watson?" Irene asked. "Do you know him?"

He whipped his head up to look at her. "You know… I honestly have no idea."

His piercing eyes were watery, but Irene couldn't tell if this was simply because he wasn't fully healthy or if this was because he was upset. "Well… I suppose we could try and find him."

"Afghanistan. He did a tour in Afghanistan. He's a captain in the Army. Has a sister named Harry—she's an alcoholic and has an ex-wife named Clara. Works at a hospital."

"Do you know his whole name?"

"John Hamish Watson."

"Right. Do you know how to track him down?"

Sherlock shook his head. "If he's real, we start with that. I think that's our best bet. But I want to go with you."

"Sherlock, you know that that's not protocol."

"Oh, to hell with protocol!" he exclaimed as he stood up. "I'm a dying man!"

Irene sat back in her seat, physically moved by his actions. "I thought dying was for lesser men," she remarked quietly.

"Well, maybe I am a lesser man," Sherlock replied. "I could almost give you a description of Mrs. Hudson, but if she doesn't know who I am, it's probably wrong."

"I wouldn't be able to certify whether or not it was true. I only spoke with her over the phone."

He steepled his fingers under his chin and closed his eyes. "Irene… I haven't much time left. I don't want to spend the rest of my life here. Please… as my therapist… see if you can get me out of here. I know any arguments I may make about being fit to be in the real world are automatically null and void because of my condition, but please, I need to leave here. There's nothing quite like a mental institution to make a man go crazy."

Irene almost laughed at that remark, but refrained. He certainly had a sense of humor. Whether or not it was appropriate was another question.

This man had virtually nothing. His entire family appeared to be gone from his life; he had no friends; he had no home; he had only himself, and even that was up for debate.

Until that moment, Irene had been at a loss about how to help her patient. But now, she knew what she had to do to help him.

She swiftly stood up from her seat and marched out of the room. When she returned, an hour later, she had several plastic bags and a small suitcase in hand. "Mr. Holmes, we have twenty minutes to get you packed up, because the orderlies will be in with the paperwork that will allow you to be discharged from the facility."

Sherlock stood up and gaped at her. "What? How?"

Irene glanced up at him. "You're a dying man."

He stepped closer to the bed. "What did you tell them? I have nowhere to go."

She smirked. "That's not completely true."

"Irene…"

"You will be under my constant watch. Right now, you're my only patient, which means that I can focus all of my attention on you. But, if things start to get out of hand, I will be required to bring you back here and complete treatment here."

"Complete treatment… you mean, wait until I die…" Sherlock muttered.

"In harsher terms, yes."

"But until then, I am going to be staying with you? Doesn't that pose a conflict of interest or something?"

"In typical cases, yes. But your case is far from typical. I'm pulling major strings here."

"Irene, are you going to lose your job?"

"No."

"Are you certain?"

"Do you want to get out of here and experience life before you don't have the chance anymore?" she asked him as she began piling his books into one of the bags.

"Not if it's going to get you in trouble. I rather enjoy your counsel and wouldn't be pleased if I lost it because we didn't play by the books."

Irene stood up fully, pushing her hair over her shoulder. "Sherlock, I'm not going to lose my job. I appreciate your concern, but let's get you packed up. My job is to help you transition from life to death, and you're making it difficult."

He eyed her warily before finally surrendering to her request. Sherlock began gathering up clothes from his wardrobe and piling them into the suitcase Irene had provided. Though he didn't entirely trust the situation, Sherlock was relieved that he would be able to leave this place for the first time in ten years. He didn't know where exactly he was headed, but he would allow himself to be excited when he figured it out.


	3. Chapter 3

They reached Irene's small flat two hours later. As it turned out, she lived just outside of London, and during commute, the Tube was hard to maneuver. But upon arrival, Sherlock found himself very much out of place. "Irene?" he asked worriedly as he walked out of the room that Irene had offered to him.

She was in the kitchen, rifling through her refrigerator, looking for something to throw together for a meal. "Yes?" she replied.

"I'm finding myself to be very anxious. Is this normal?" he asked her as he stood against the wall, examining his surroundings like a scared animal.

Irene glanced over at him and bit her lip. "Okay… why don't you sit down over there, and I will bring you some water and something to eat. Just keep taking deep breaths and I will be right there."

Sherlock nodded numbly, slinking away from the wall and hurrying to sit down. It wasn't that Irene's home wasn't welcoming, it had just been a long time since Sherlock had been in any sort of home environment, and despite the fact that he was comfortable around Irene, he was still very out of his element in this unknown space. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

Moments later, Irene walked out into the room, holding a plate of food and a glass of water. The plate of food looked appetizing: cheese, crackers, an apple, and some ham. It was the meal you might give a young child, but to Sherlock, it was more than sufficient. He wasn't very hungry these days. All the medication he was on suppressed his appetite. Despite this, he ate a little of everything and then retreated to his room to go to bed.

The following morning, he was up earlier than Irene, showered and ready to go exploring. His apprehensions about being out of the facility were still present, but he knew that this was the last chance he would have in this life to go out and live, so he swallowed his fears and put on a brave face. Irene wouldn't let anything happen to him.

Once Irene was ready to join him, they left the flat in search of one Dr. John Watson. Sherlock's knowledge of the schematics of London was impressive, but as he explained to Irene, he had ten long years to memorize the layout of London because of the map he had on his wall. Irene suggested that they use a cab, but Sherlock was adamant that they walk through the city.

From what Irene had gleaned from Sherlock, John was the person who wrote about their time together. Irene inferred that Sherlock wanted to ask John about the last few years to piece together his life so he could move forward and leave his life at peace. It made perfect sense to Irene, but she doubted that this venture would bring much success.

When they came upon the clinic that Sherlock was certain was the clinic that John worked at, he thrust the doors open and hurried up to the receptionist. "Does a Dr. Watson work here?" he asked her.

The receptionist nodded and glanced over at a computer screen. "Do you need to see him?" she asked Sherlock.

"Yes, please."

She nodded and then stood up. "Just a moment, sir."

"Thank you."

Sherlock turned back to look at Irene, a grin forming on his face. Irene didn't want to get too excited for Sherlock just yet; they still didn't know if Dr. Watson would recognize Sherlock. Unfortunately, her fears were confirmed when the man whom she presumed was Dr. John Watson stepped out into the waiting area and looked at Sherlock in such a way that Irene knew that John didn't know who Sherlock was.

"John!" Sherlock cried out as he stuck his hand out for a handshake. "How are you?"

John shook Sherlock's hand, but glanced at Irene as he tried to figure out what was going on. "I'm fine… sir… how are you?"

Irene saw things going south very quickly. She stepped beside Sherlock and shook John's hand. "Dr. Watson, I'm Dr. Adler. I'm Sherlock's therapist. He has asked to see you."

John nodded, suddenly starting to piece things together. "Do you have an appointment?"

"No, of course not, John."

John scratched his head, becoming increasingly uncomfortable. "Dr. Adler, may I have a word?" he finally asked quietly.

Irene nodded before turning to Sherlock. "Just go sit down. I won't be too long."

"Are you sure?"

"You have to trust me," she told Sherlock. "Just read something from the magazine rack."

Reluctantly, Sherlock went to sit down and read as Irene slipped into John's office. "I'm terribly sorry," she said softly as she closed the door behind her. "Sherlock is my patient; he's in his final days and has requested that we meet with people from his past. Or, I should say, his alleged past. He was certain that he knew you from somewhere."

John blinked and slowly nodded. "I've never seen that man before in my life. Why does he seem comfortable with calling me by my first name?"

"He's been in a mental institution for the last ten years. Prior to that, he jumped off the roof of St Bart's, thus prompting his brother to have him institutionalized. He's dying."

"Dr. Adler, I'm not sure why you're here."

"He thinks he knows you."

"But he doesn't. What is his last name?"

"Holmes. His name is Sherlock Holmes."

Something registered with John. "Oh… that's him? I remember hearing about the guy jumping off of Bart's, but I didn't think he was still alive."

"Well, until recently, he was alive and kicking. I guess he still is alive. I'm not sure about the kicking though…"

John drew in a long breath. "I'm not sure what you want from me."

Irene nodded. "I'll explain the situation to him. But, maybe you could just say goodbye. Give him some closure. You don't have to pretend that you now him or anything. Just shake his hand and wish him well. I'll do the rest. It's my job, after all."

"Right. That's fair."

"Thank you, Dr. Watson. I apologize for taking your time."

John and Irene walked out of his office and out into the waiting area. "Sherlock," John called out, a huge smile on his face. "I hope everything is well with you, but I have some patients I have to see, so I'm afraid I can't stay too long. Anyway, best of luck mate. I'm sorry to hear about your situation, but you know…"

"Right. Everyone dies," Sherlock answered, his face not as grief-stricken as Irene had expected.

Before John could reply, Sherlock offered his hand to John and nodded curtly. "No need to pretend. Sorry to take your time," Sherlock finished.

John's face fell. "I'm sorry. I really am truly sorry."

"No need to be sorry for this. You didn't have anything to do with this."

John looked over at Irene, trying to find some way of handling the situation. Irene only closed her eyes slowly and quietly exhaled. "Dr. Watson," she sighed as she nodded slightly to him.

Sherlock didn't want to walk back to the Tube station. He requested that they take a cab to the station. He said that it was because he was tired, but Irene knew that it was because he didn't want to have to walk the streets that he had memorized incorrectly, putting incorrect images to the streets he thought he knew perfectly.

Upon returning to the flat, Sherlock retreated to the guest room. Irene didn't see or hear him for several hours. When he did reappear, it was nearing midnight, and Irene was about to go to bed. He padded into the room as Irene was finishing up with some emails. Sherlock sat down on the couch adjacent to Irene and watched her morosely as she typed away at her computer. "Irene…" he murmured.

Irene looked up from her computer. "Yes?"

"When I die… will you tell them that I'm not fake? Will you make sure that they know that I'm real?"

"What? Why would people think you're a fake?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "You saw what happened with John!"

"Sherlock, that's an isolated event."

"And Mrs. Hudson."

"Okay, those are two isolated events."

"Irene, please listen to me. I'm a fake. My entire life has been a lie. I'm nothing more than a madman who has been institutionalized for a decade because I jumped off of a building and lived."

"That's not true."

"Yes it is."

He turned over onto his side and curled up into a ball.

"Sherlock…" Irene sighed as she closed her computer down.

Sherlock looked over his shoulder at her. "All they will think is that I was a madman who jumped off a building in an attempt to take my own life. No one is going to believe that I was real."

"Define real."

He was taken aback by this comment. "Sorry?"

"What do you mean by real? In a perfect world, what does real mean?"

"That my life actually happened the way I remember it. That it wasn't all just in my head."

Irene cocked her head. "What do you mean by that?"

"Irene. I was in a mental institution for a reason. You tell me."

"Sherlock, I have only known you for almost four days. I have no idea what the last ten years have been like for you."

"What if I told you the story?"

"What story?"

"The whole story. How I got here."

"Sherlock, you've been in a mental institution for the better part of the last ten years."

"But I've lived a different life. I haven't actually lived in the mental institution. I was out, solving cases and exploring London."

Irene eyed him with deep concern. "Sherlock…"

"You could write it. You could be my John Watson, since John doesn't know who I am."

Irene furrowed her brows as she tried to figure out what Sherlock was trying to get at. "Write down the stories?"

"Exactly. You can be my biographer. You can write down what I tell you and publish it. That's what I want. I want it to all be presented as fiction. Maybe then I might get some validation for the life I led, since no one wants to believe that it was real."

Irene was about to point out that it wasn't real, but as she examined this poor man, months, if not weeks away from his death, she saw an opportunity to help someone. Truly help someone. Her job had always meant to be as a way of helping people, but never, in the ten years that she had been doing this, had she actually helped anyone. All the people that she set out to help died before anything could really happen, and she was rubbish at helping people embark upon their journeys to the afterlife. But this, now this could really be something.

She flipped open her laptop and looked at him expectantly. "Where do you want to start?" she asked him with a broad smile.


	4. Chapter 4

For the next three days, Irene and Sherlock spent all their waking hours working on transcribing Sherlock's stories. Irene's hands ached and Sherlock's voice was going hoarse, but they kept at it. Sherlock had never seemed more alive than when he was telling Irene these stories of his, so Irene tried to keep her exhaustion hidden.

Eventually, they ended up working in Irene's room, lounging on her queen-sized bed. Because hygiene had taken a backseat during the previous few days, Irene and Sherlock were quite the pair with their rumpled clothing and less-than-perfect complexions. Irene was starting to notice a strange odor between the two of them and made a note to shower at some point. Otherwise, neither of them particularly cared about what the other looked like; Sherlock was in his element and that was all that mattered.

Sometime around midnight, after about fifteen hours of continuous transcribing, Sherlock rolled onto his stomach and stared up at Irene as she focused on typing. "You have very green eyes," he remarked.

Irene didn't glance down at him, but hummed in response. "They are rather quite striking. Have you ever considered being a model of sorts?"

She scoffed. "I couldn't pay anyone to make me into a model," she joked.

"Well, no… I think the point of modeling is that someone would pay you," he quipped.

Another few minutes of silence passed, the first period of silence between them in at least ten hours. Sherlock glanced at the clock before returning his attention to Irene. "How out of line would it be if I were to ask to kiss you right now?"

"Sorry?"

"I would like to kiss you. But I'm sure that's breaking every rule."

She laughed. "Are you serious?"

"Yes."

"Why do you want to kiss me?"

"Because you're the only person in this world who has ever listened to me."

"I don't think that's true."

"My brother refused to listen to me. Instead, he put me in a mental institute. At the mental institute, no one would listen to me because they could discredit everything I said and say it was because I was a madman. Before that, I was always brushed aside because I was simply a know-it-all who would be contrary just for the sake of being contrary."

Irene didn't know what to say to that. It was her job to know what to say, but she found herself at a loss for words with virtually everything that came out of Sherlock's mouth. This was most certainly crossing every line and if Sherlock weren't terminal, Irene would lose her job. But, because Sherlock was terminal, crudely put, Irene would be losing her job anyway. There were so many conflicts of interest here.

But…

"You've never shown any sort of emotional connection before," Irene observed quietly. "I've wondered how such a brilliant man could end up spending the majority of his life alone, but I've come to realize it's because you've never been given the opportunity to have an emotional connection. And yes, there are so many things wrong with this right now, and I don't want you to think that I'm appeasing you simply because you're a dying man, because I'm not."

"What do you mean?"

She paused. "You can kiss me."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. But, I maintain the right to stop it at any time."

"Of course."

He leaned in and gave her a very soft peck on her cheek. Irene had expected that he would go for the lips, but attributed his actions to a reluctance and uncertainty connected to this situation. She doubted that he had ever hugged anyone, let alone kiss someone. Just as she expected that to be the end, he went in again, still tentative as he did so. This time, he had more courage and kissed her on the mouth.

A few hours later, Irene would pinpoint that moment as the moment that things completely left either of their conscious control. Irene had never understood how people could get lost in the moment and make decisions that they normally wouldn't make. She was highly suspicious of the idea that people could get so wrapped up in the heat of the moment and move so seamlessly into instinct that they forget their better senses. However, as she allowed Sherlock to act on some of his curiosities, she allowed herself to act on curiosities of her own.

Minutes after Sherlock's first kiss on her cheek, they were moving quickly along to something a little more intimate. Irene knew how things were going to go, and tried to hold Sherlock back. "Are you clean?" she breathed as she tried to keep him contained.

"You think I've had a lot of sexual partners?" he laughed

"Sherlock, you used drugs that required the use of needles. Are you clean?"

This slowed him. Sherlock pushed back until he could make eye contact with her. "I always used sterile needles. I may have gotten into the drug scene, but I was always cautious about it. Besides, I have been tested and I know for a fact that you have access to those test results in my file."

His answer was sufficient in easing Irene's qualms. Of course, she still had a great number of concerns regarding the ethical nature of the situation, but for the first time in a very long time, she wasn't concerned with the consequences. The physical consequences were not an issue (she was on birth control because of an irregular menstrual cycle); they were always the emotional consequences she was concerned about when it came to sex and being vulnerable. Irene was allowing herself to get lost in the moment and relish in what she had fallen into. She never thought of the possibility that she might regret this decision later. As uncertain as Irene was, she didn't think she had been more certain about something in her life.

The sex, while interesting, sadly did not last long. In a series of predictable events, Sherlock was horribly inexperienced and Irene was rusty, making for an awkward encounter. Though she would never say so, Irene believed that that first time with Sherlock was almost worse than her first time having sex. Despite that fact, Irene was surprised at how safe and in control she felt while having sex with him. She never felt that he was going to hurt her or take liberties that he had no right taking, as she had with several of her previous sexual partners. This came as a shock to Irene, who had always thought that she had made good choices with her sexual partners.

Sherlock, on the other hand, was exhausted. He rest his head in the valley between her hipbones, his right cheekbone completely covering her belly button as he stared in the general direction of her face, but very much lost in his own thoughts. Irene tried not to squirm as his lanky fingers drew languid circles and loops along her sides, almost as if he were trying to paint out his thoughts to her on her skin while he was lost in his mind. She knew that she had broken virtually every single rule in the book by allowing things to get to this point with Sherlock. She knew that when his time eventually came—and it would—things wouldn't be as cut and dry as every other case. Was this what it meant to help someone, truly help someone?

Irene examined his features. Just in the last three days, his jawline had become more pronounced and the spotting of freckles that had been faint in comparison to the rest of his skin had become more prominent. His cheeks were flushed from their recent engagement, but beyond that, he was virtually devoid of color.

"Have you ever thought of having children?" he asked softly as his eyes clicked back into focus.

Irene started with the sudden sound of his voice, but quickly relaxed. She snorted. "You assume that I am one of those girls who can find a boy and settle down."

"You found me."

"You're not a boy who I could ever possibly settle down with."

"Why not?"

"You're dying."

"Everyone dies, Irene. It's one of the two certainties we can cling to. We are born and we die."

"You're my patient."

"That's irrelevant."

"Not particularly."

"How so?"

"Settling down requires getting to know the other person you spend your life with. In case you haven't noticed, you know nothing about my life while I know your life rather intimately."

"You're lonely. You invest all of your time and energy into your work. You hope that with each new case you get, you can make a real impact, and as result, you are incapable of having a functional love life. Which is why you're here."

"And based on what you have told me, I presume you have me all figured out…" she clucked.

"Not everything," he admitted.

He let out a deep sigh and closed his eyes. "I never saw myself as the sort of person who would settle down and get married. However, I always sort of anticipated that I would produce offspring in some way or another."

Irene furrowed her brow. "I'm not having a child with you."

His eyes flew open. "I know that," he snapped defensively. "I wasn't implying that I would."

"Fine. Go on."

His eyes closed again. "I always thought that I'd have a least someone to share what I had learned with. Maybe they would be able to go forward and make a difference and have a better life than I ever did. Thing is, when you're in a mental institution for the better part of a decade, there isn't much to come by in the way of potential partners," he chuckled. "There comes a point when you're so crippled by the loneliness that you just create someone for yourself; someone who you wish so much was real, but are scared that if they were real and if you were to meet them, they would fail to meet your expectations, and you would never be happy again."

Irene watched him intently. "You're speaking from personal experience?"

He opened his eyes again. "It wasn't a coincidence that I knew your name."

"What are you talking about?" Irene asked him, starting to feel a little worried.

"Ten years ago, you were at the institution with another patient. You were still new, fresh out of college and full of hopes and dreams, so much that there was very little room left for reality. You introduced yourself to my roommate, Eli Blackadder, and even though I couldn't see you because the curtain between my bed and his, I could hear your voice loud and clear."

"Eli Blackadder?" Irene echoed.

"You don't remember him, do you?"

Irene shook her head slowly. "Why don't I remember him?"

"Your services with Mr. Blackadder were short-lived, seeing as how he died the day after you two met."

She nodded slightly, seeming to accept his story as fact even though she had nearly seven hundred pages of narratives that equated to reasons not to believe Sherlock when he claimed to be speaking the truth, as he knew it. "And why were my name and voice significant?"

"First woman's voice I had heard in nearly five years that I could actually remember without the cloak of medication or mental illness. Your voice was the first female voice in the institution that I could trust to be genuine."

"And my name?"

"The only tie I had to your voice, of course."

Irene listened quietly. Her silence prompted Sherlock to keep talking. "For the next few years, I wondered what Irene Adler was like and what her life was. Based on the pitch and inflection of your words, I figured you were likely from Britain- likely from southern England. I anticipated that Irene Adler would have a lean stature, dark brown hair, and piercing blue eyes. In fact, if you look in the box on the floor in the corner, there is a photo that I came across that actually matches the description I came up with in my head perfectly."

He gestured vaguely to the box in question, but didn't allow Irene to stand up. "Am I allowed to see the photo?" she asked him.

A few movements later, Sherlock was out of the bed and retrieving the photo for Irene. He returned and soundlessly handed Irene a small book of photos before crawling back to his previous place in bed.

Irene opened the book, noting the creak the spine made as an indication that this book wasn't one that was used much. The first photo she saw was of a woman, who matched the description of Sherlock's version of Irene Adler. The woman stood on the front steps of a stately home, beaming as she posed in her wedding dress. "Who is she?" she asked Sherlock softly.

"As it so happens, that is my mother," he explained.

Irene furrowed her brow. "You just described your mother?"

"I know, I know. Spare me the lecture about the Oedipal complex."

Irene snorted and turned the page in the photo book. "What happened to her?" she asked him, knowing full well that there was more to the story of Mrs. Holmes.

"She died."

"I'm sorry."

"I doubt you had anything to do with it. I don't think you would have even been alive when she died. I was barely alive when it happened. I was only two months old. My entire life was a slew of nannies and Mycroft. After her death, Father threw himself wholesomely into his work and essentially refused to recognize us as his own flesh and blood."

Though she didn't make any indication of it, Irene realized that this was probably the root of Sherlock's problems. He was virtually orphaned at a very young age, raised by random nannies that had very little vested interest in his upbringing (just as long as they were paid and received their benefits) and an older brother who didn't know how to cope with the loss of his mother and the rejection from his father. The man who was curled up against her was starting to make much more sense.

Irene came across a photo that featured Mrs. Holmes holding one of her sons. "Is this you or Mycroft?" she asked him as she showed Sherlock the photo.

"Mycroft."

"Are there any photos of you?"

He shrugged. "If there are, Mycroft has withheld them from me. The first time I saw a photo of my mother was about six years ago, which means that, as crazy as it sounds, I imagined Irene Adler to look like that far before I even knew what my mother looked like."

"I certainly don't fit that description," Irene pointed out.

Sherlock smiled. "I didn't expect you to be a redhead, that's for sure."

She chuckled. "So, have you determined to count my freckles? For some reason, the guys I have sex with always like counting them."

He furrowed his brow in response to her remark about her previous partners. Even though it didn't really matter, it was still a strange concept. He was still trying to get his head around the fact that he had just had sex with someone, and the mention of the other men who had already been in his place didn't help with that. "No…" he murmured. "I think I'll save that for later."

And with that, he fell asleep.


	5. Chapter 5

They continued to make progress on Sherlock's memoirs, each day, getting through about seventy pages. Their progress slowed as time went on, but Sherlock felt that this was fine; they had gotten through the nitty-gritty details of his life and if he were to perish sooner rather than later, the story would be fine to share. He became restless and wanted to get out of Irene's flat as much as possible.

Irene found herself being less and less of a caregiver and more and more a confidant to Sherlock. She was fascinated with this man and his fantastic stories, knowing that if he were in any other life, he might be a brilliant writer himself. She hated the fact that his reality was that he never actually lived what he thought to be reality, but was pleased by how he handled this. When she considered what she might do if his reality were hers, she didn't think that she would have come up with such an idea as to write down everything as if it were all fiction.

One afternoon, while they were out running errands (at Tesco's of all places), Sherlock disappeared from Irene's side. Frantically, Irene searched around the large store, finding him in the dairy section, looking at a display of milk. "Sherlock," Irene hissed as she found him. "What are you doing?"

"Do we need milk?" he asked her absently. "I think we do."

"I have two cartons here," Irene explained as she pointed into her basket. "Come on."

He turned to look at her, his face devoid of expression. "I'm going to die."

She cocked her head. "What's brought this about?" she asked him softly.

"My best friend doesn't know who I am, my landlady doesn't know I lived there, and no one at the Scotland Yard would bother with me. And here I am, in the middle of Tesco's, staring at a dairy display, trying to figure out if we need milk or not. How rubbish is that?"

"That's not rubbish, Sherlock."

"It certainly feels like it."

"How so?"

"Because it isn't real. None of this… nothing is real."

"This, right here and right now, is real."

"But none of the prelude to the present is. We didn't meet because you're a former dominatrix…"

A woman passing by gave them a weird look, which Irene shook her head and gestured for Sherlock to keep going. This was progress.

He drew in a deep breath. "Irene, there are a million things I never got to do."

"I know."

"I want to do all of those things."

"Why don't we prioritize?"

He snorted. "That would take all the time I have left."

"Probably. But what do you really want to do, right at this moment?"

Sherlock mulled this thought for a moment before breaking out into a huge grin. "I want to get married."

Irene paled. Before she could manage words, she had to swallow hard and plan out her words carefully. "Married?" she squeaked.

"Married," he repeated firmly.

"Anyone in particular?" Irene asked, feeling stupid.

"Well, I was thinking your neighbor was lovely, but she's already taken," he laughed.

Irene tried smiling. "You mean me, don't you?" she asked, trying not to sound too disappointed.

"Yes, that was the intention."

She exhaled deeply as she raised her eyebrows. "Well, we have broken pretty much every other ethical code in my vocation. Why not break a few more?"

The following afternoon, Irene Adler became Irene Adler-Holmes, though she would never use the surname of Holmes in her professional life. She was starting to wonder at what point helping Sherlock sort out his life became sorting out her own life too.

She now had the man and the ring: two of the things that Irene had always been told would validate and make her life better. Irene knew better than to listen to these societal pressures, but had always wondered how much truth they held. Now, now that she was married to a man who only had, best case, a few weeks of life left, she was starting to see that society was, and would forever be wrong.

But of course, she didn't want to think about proving society wrong. She didn't want to address the inevitable pain she was going to have to endure when it came time for Sherlock to leave her permanently. Thinking about this required her to have to look into the future, which she knew wouldn't have a happy ending. The prince of this story wasn't going to live much longer, and would leave her alone once again.

Until then, she would admire her very simple wedding band and pretend that she was like any other newlywed: planning out her life with her husband and ignoring the inevitable troubles to come.


	6. Chapter 6

When they found themselves in Paris after a month of knowing each other, Irene finally accepted that she was simply never going to be able to reconcile this case and that there was no such thing as professionalism left in Sherlock's case.

They were doing the Paris thing: sitting outside of a small café near the river, admiring their surroundings. Irene was fluent in French, but she didn't know why she was surprised when she found out that Sherlock was also fluent. She also didn't know why she was so surprised when Sherlock surprised her by being a complete gentleman. Usually death meant that people lost their humanity, but yet again, Sherlock was proving to be more and more human the closer and closer he got to death.

By the time they were in Paris, they had gone well into Sherlock's stories about Moriarty. They needed this break; it was emotionally draining for Sherlock to recount those stories. Irene was concerned by how tormented her… husband… was by this figment of his imagination. Irene knew she was doing Sherlock any favors if she allowed herself to be completely lost in the story, but she had to give the man some credit: he could tell a story.

His story was now over a thousand pages long. Irene would have go to back and edit a considerable amount because most of it was Sherlock and his digressions. As interesting as those were, Irene didn't believe that others would find them as enrapturing as she did. She had to keep reminding herself that this was her life now, and she had a very subjective view of the situation.

The afternoon was warm and breezy, the perfect weather for a day in Paris. A couple, not too unlike Irene and Sherlock, walked past, walking their corgi and pushing a pram. Irene laughed to herself at the notion of ever being normal with Sherlock. There would be no baby prams or corgis in their future. Their future consisted, best case, of a few weeks more and then the inevitable funeral.

"What are your wishes for your estate and funeral?" Irene blurted out.

Sherlock glanced up from the newspaper, surprised by his wife's question. "Sorry?"

"What do you want to happen upon your death? Are there already plans in place for this?"

He seemed taken aback by this rather blunt question. "It all goes to Mycroft. But, I suppose that since you're my wife, you would get something as well. I guess you get power of being my benefactor."

Irene nodded. "I'm sorry… I didn't mean to be so crass. It's just… it's usually something that comes up while I'm doing my job, and considering that I'm still technically supposed to be helping you through this, I'm supposed to assist in the process of getting all of your ducks in a row. But, at least I know what to do now. Contact Mycroft."

"Right. I'm sure he's had the paperwork drafted for ages now."

"What makes you think that?"

Sherlock snorted. "My brother's idea of making sure I know what is going on is doing everything for me and then briefing me on it later. Usually, he makes rather important decisions for me without my consent, and I'm always the one with the short end of the stick. You actually think I went into that institution willingly?"

"Well, no… but then again, most people don't."

"Fair point. But, my brother likes to make these decisions for me, thinking that it's the best for me, when in actuality, it's the best for him; the path of least resistance and such."

Much like Moriarty, Mycroft was a sore subject. Sherlock absolutely abhorred any talk of Mycroft, something that Irene picked up on early into their relationship, but in this case, it was necessary to mention Sherlock's elder brother. "I'm sorry for bringing him up…" Irene replied quietly.

"I understand why you did it."

"I know, but he upsets you. And it upsets me to see you upset."

"You're just trying to do your job."

"Even so…" she sighed.

He grabbed her hand. "Don't worry about it, Irene. You still have a job to do, and you're supposed to be getting it done. You're doing the right thing. This is good; it's helping me get to a point where I can talk about death and accept what's coming."

Irene felt it was best to leave the discussion at that. She had effectively gotten the information she needed and as long as she had this information, there was no need to discuss the matter further.

This was their honeymoon, after all. Might as well enjoy it.


	7. Chapter 7

Irene woke up early on the forty-seventh day with a sinking feeling in her gut. Sherlock had had a rough night; he had whimpered throughout most of the night, clinging to Irene for dear life, squeezing her tightly as he fought night terrors. His breathing had been uneven for hours, and as Irene stealthily took his pulse from his wrist, she noted its unevenness. She knew that he didn't have much longer. As gruesome as she found it, she gave him no more than seven days.

She stared up at the ceiling, examining the cracks and the patterns they made. They had made a lot of progress on the story during the last few days, but she feared that there wouldn't be enough time to finish the story that she knew he wanted to finish. This was his life, and she was the only person who could share it with him. She was the only one he wanted to tell. It was an immense burden, but she was willing to bear it proudly. Sherlock was a lonely man who was dying. He had only tried to do good for the world, but no one had been willing to let him. The least she could do was help him. It was her job to help him.

Sherlock woke an hour or so later, letting out a soft moan as he opened his eyes to the filtered light from the sunrise. "Why are you awake?" he asked Irene as he realized she wasn't sleeping.

"It's morning," she explained.

"But it's only six in the morning. You've been awake for at least an hour."

Damn, he was good.

"It's fine. I don't need a lot of sleep," she lied.

The last two weeks had been amazing. She and Sherlock had gone around the Continent, exploring as much as possible. Now, they were in Austria, and Irene was concerned about how much longer Sherlock would be with the world. She knew that she had to get him back to London as soon as possible, but she didn't want to make it seem as though she was rushing Sherlock through his life.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked her quietly.

"Should we go back to London?"

"Why would we do that?"

"I don't know. I just don't get a good feeling about being so far away from home. I've always been like this."

"Irene, we're fine."

"I'm sure we are, but that doesn't necessarily help me with my nerves," she replied, almost jokingly to deter Sherlock's suspicions.

"We will fly home tomorrow. I want to see the opera, of course."

"Of course," she agreed, silently giving thanks for his agreeableness.

Sherlock responded by nuzzling his face deeper into her red hair, drawing in a deep breath and letting it out. Irene laughed. "You're tickling me!" she giggled.

He chuckled against her back and fell back to sleep.

That evening, they had a quick dinner before they headed back to their room to get ready for the theatre. Sherlock had acquired a tuxedo for the affair while Irene had brought the dress she had worn for her sister's wedding the year previous. Irene felt self-conscious when she saw how striking her husband looked in his garb, despite the fact that he was close to looking like the living dead. He smiled at her and escorted her out of their hotel room down to the car they had hired for the evening.

The opera was better than expected. Sherlock lost himself in the performance, completely enraptured with the music. Irene had never seen him so out of himself and even though she wasn't one for opera music, found she enjoyed the show.

Long after they had left the opera house, Sherlock kept humming the music, still blissfully living in the performance. Irene swore that he hummed the entire opera in his sleep that night.

The following morning, they went to the airport and caught the first flight back to London. The flight wasn't too long, but Irene could feel the burden of Sherlock's impending death on her shoulders. She wondered if he felt it too. He probably wouldn't mention if he did, simply for the sake of keeping Irene safe.

When they arrived back at Irene's flat, Sherlock dropped his bags in his room and quickly returned to the sitting room and picked up Irene's computer. "We have to add to the story," he informed her. "There is so much I remember now."

She stood in the doorway between the sitting room and the kitchen. "Remember, or came up with?" she asked him softly.

Sherlock glanced up Irene. His face fell when he processed what she had said. "I want to write about our trip."

"Okay. Let me freshen up."

"No… now."

"Sherlock, we've just been on a plane for several hours. Can I go take a shower?"

"Irene. We have to finish this," he insisted.

"Why?"

His eyes narrowed. "Oh, don't be coy."

"Coy? What on earth are you talking about?"

"I'm dying, Irene. I'm dying, and there's nothing either of us can do about it, except for finishing this!" he shouted.

She took a step back into the kitchen. "Sherlock, you have time."

"No, no I don't. I know you know that."

"I'm going to take a shower. You can start writing."

"No, Irene. You have to write. It's your writing. If I write it, it's going to be different."

Irene exhaled slowly. "Sherlock. I am going to take a shower. I won't be long. You can start without me, and later, we can go back and rewrite if necessary."

Swiftly, he jumped up from the couch. "Irene, we must start writing now!" he screamed.

"No," she answered quietly.

He grabbed her arm, squeezing it tightly, his nails digging into her skin. "What if we don't finish?" he yelled.

"Let go of me, or I will call the police," she threatened. "Now."

"We have to write!"

"Let go of me, Sherlock."

"Irene."

"Let go of me," she hissed.

His breathing was uneven and his pupils were dilated. He showed every indication of arousal, but this was not a sexual arousal. This was a reaction to his mental deterioration. Irene had been seeing the signs all along, but now, he was definitely getting into the thick of his demise. Irene knew that this would be one of those moments that she looked back on in her later years and would regret.

"Now," she growled.

He stared her in the eye for a moment more before his grip loosened slightly. Irene twisted her arm out of his grip and walked out of the room. She headed quickly to her bathroom and locked the door behind her. Before she stepped into the shower, she called the director of the mental institution that Sherlock had lived in prior to his stay at her home, informing them that she was bringing him back that evening.

During her shower, she sobbed uncontrollably. Things had gotten out of hand and instead of being something that she could brush to the dark corners of her mind, she had been brought into this uncontrollable mess. She had come to adore Sherlock, and even though he never had had any intention of hurting her, he had. He couldn't control his emotions or actions anymore and Irene had to hurt him by sending him away, like everyone else in his life. She couldn't fix him. No one could fix him.

Maybe if someone had tried sooner, he could have been mended and on his way. Maybe if things had gone differently, he wouldn't have ever had this fate. Maybe if someone else had taken this case, Sherlock could die a whole man.

But now, he was simply a shell of a human being. He wasn't more human the closer he came to dying; he was less human the closer and closer he came to death.

And now, as his wife, she had to betray him.

So, Irene cried.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Get your tissues. It's not a happy chapter. :/

* * *

As everyone knew, Sherlock did not take nicely to being returned to the facility like a shelter puppy that was too much to handle so its family sent him back.

He had screamed at Irene, saying horrible things to her as the facility staff led him out to the car. Inspector Lestrade, who had been called as a precaution based on Irene's explanation of the situation, stayed behind to talk to Irene about Sherlock's behavior for the police report. (Apparently, the facility had taken every measure to ensure that Irene would be safe, including starting the proceedings for a restraining order if Irene so wished.) Even though cases like this were not typically Inspector Lestrade's forte, he was one of a few authorities available to help with the situation.

"Ms. Adler, I presume?" Lestrade asked as he flipped open his steno and poised himself to take her story after Sherlock had been taken away.

"Yes," she murmured.

"Are you okay?"

She ran a hand through her hair, still damp from her shower. "He's dying and I am the only person who hadn't given up on him yet."

"He will be fine in the facility," Lestrade assured her.

Irene stared the inspector in the eye. "With all due respect, Inspector, I don't think you're qualified to make that statement."

This statement took Lestrade by surprise. "Ms. Adler, I'm not sure if I understand."

"I'm his therapist. I had one job: get him through the dying process without screwing him up further. Help the man die happy. And I've managed to go and fuck that up."

"How so?"

"I'm his wife, and I'm sending him away. He hasn't got more than a week of life left in him, and in my efforts to help him, I've hurt him even more."

"You're his wife?" Lestrade asked.

She nodded. "Please spare me the lecture of this causing a conflict of interest. I'm certain I crossed that line ages ago. You don't need to file a report. I'm not going to file a restraining order against him. I still have a responsibility to help him with the dying process," Irene explained.

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"You're probably right, but it's my responsibility."

"Ms. Adler…"

"I'm going to give him some time. I'll go and see him tomorrow. But for now, there's no need to have the police involved."

Inspector Lestrade nodded curtly and walked back to his squad car. Irene stood in front of the building, staring out at the street, taking in the early-evening air. _Tomorrow will be different_, she thought.

The following morning, she was up and ready to go by 8. She arrived at the facility by 9, signing in at the front desk and on her way to Sherlock's room a few minutes later. Irene walked the dreary hallways quickly, somehow sensing that something was off about this situation. Upon arriving at Sherlock's room, her worst fears were confirmed. He was not there.

"Where is Sherlock Holmes?" she asked one of the nurses.

The woman's smile faded. "Are you family?" she asked Irene.

"His wife."

"Mr. Holmes has a wife?"

"Yes. I just told you that I'm his wife," Irene sighed impatiently. "Where is he?"

The nurse drew in a deep breath. "Mr. Holmes suffered from a ruptured aneurysm about an hour and a half ago. His body has been taken to the morgue."

"And you didn't think to tell anyone at the front desk this little detail?" Irene hissed.

"His brother has been notified of his passing. We were not aware that there were any other kin to contact."

Irene walked past the nurse and stepped into Sherlock's room, seeing all of his belongings stacked against the wall. On top of the pile of things, there was a small envelope addressed to her. She didn't open it, but instead, she pocketed the note and began to tidy up his things so that she could take them back to her flat. She didn't even bother asking the nurse for permission.

Before she left, she instructed the facility staff to contact her as soon as the coroner's report came back. Her explicit instructions stated that the report was to be released to no one except for Irene, and that all matters regarding Sherlock's body and records would be directed to Irene instead of Mycroft. Since she was able to present them with a marriage license, her instructions were taken without question.

A day and a half later, Irene received a call from the coroner, one Dr. Molly Hooper. "Um… is this Mrs. Holmes?" a woman who sounded like she was a teenager asked when Irene answered the phone.

"Yes, but I prefer to be called Dr. Adler. Is this Dr. Hooper?"

"Yes, Dr. Adler. I'm calling in regard of your husband's autopsy report."

"Ah."

"You are aware of the fact that your husband used illicit drugs, right?"

"He hadn't used in over ten years."

"Yes. There were no traces of any substances in his system, but his drug use contributed to his death. His heart was weakened from the drug abuse, and due to the trauma of being brought back to the facility, his heart failed, which contributed to his aneurysm bursting. The aneurysm would have been operable, but because his heart was not strong enough to withstand surgery, it was never operated on. Otherwise, there were no other obvious signs of death. I am so sorry for your loss."

"Thank you Dr. Hooper," Irene replied flatly. "The report will be sent to me, am I correct?"

"Yes, that's correct," Dr. Hooper answered.

"Excellent. Thank you for calling. Have a nice afternoon," Irene said before hanging up.

She stared around at her flat. She would probably have to move. She was likely going to lose her job, since one of her colleagues had caught wind of what was going on with Irene had had reported her to the Board of Psychiatry. She had a meeting with one of the directors, and Irene knew that things were not going to end well. All that time she had spent in school, all the patients, all the blood, sweat, and tears she had put into her work: it would probably be all for not.

Very much like Sherlock's life.


	9. Chapter 9

As Irene expected, she lost her license. After being reprimanded for not keeping things strictly professional, Irene stood up in the middle of the tirade and walked out of the room. She received a phone call later, informing her that her license had been revoked and she was no longer legally able to practice psychiatry or psychology, effective immediately. Surprisingly, Irene wasn't too torn up about it.

A week after Sherlock's death, she received a summons from the office of one Mr. M. Holmes. Dreading the encounter with Sherlock's older brother, Irene hesitated and responded a day after receiving the summons. Two days later, she was en route to the Holmes estate via a town car that had picked her up at her flat.

The car pulled up in front of a large manor about an hour outside of London. Irene knew that this was the home of the elusive Mycroft Holmes, but still found it difficult to reconcile this to what she felt. She still felt immensely loyal to Sherlock, and based on how she perceived Mycroft's actions towards his younger brother, she was still very much hesitant to meet with him.

Even so, she still had some work to finish up for Sherlock. He hadn't drafted a will, but had entrusted in Irene the instructions for his affairs to be delegated over to Mycroft. Since Irene suspected that Sherlock and Mycroft hadn't spoken in a while but knew Sherlock's wishes, she wanted to make sure that his brother adhered to them. So, here she was, at the Holmes' estate, staring up at this huge house, wondering if this was where the plight of Sherlock Holmes began.

The driver indicated where she was to go, and she thanked him. Irene stepped out of the vehicle and strode carefully across the gravel driveway. Her shoes, a pair of heels that she had purchased a few years previous but never wore because she never had the occasion, were not handling the ground well, and she didn't want to go falling over. She didn't want Mycroft thinking that she couldn't handle her own when that couldn't be farther from the truth.

As she approached the door, it opened and a middle-aged gentleman stepped out onto the front doorstep. "Ms. Adler, I presume?" he asked her.

She glanced up and nodded. Irene stuck her hand out to shake the hand of Mycroft Holmes, noting that the man looked very little like the younger Holmes whom she had gotten to know quite intimately. The only similarity she could note immediately was the fact that the Holmes brothers had the same way of looking at people; they both had those calculating stares that slowly pulled people apart based on appearances alone.

"I presume congratulations are in order?" Mycroft asked in a cool voice.

Irene pulled a face. "Sorry?"

"The pregnancy. Is it going well?"

"I'm not pregnant," she hissed.

"Oh. My apologies."

She glared at him before looking past him into the home. "I believe we have some matters to discuss regarding Sherlock's estate?" she remarked, hoping to prompt Mycroft to action.

Irene didn't expect things to go so sour so fast. But, at the rate that she handled matters with the Holmes men, she figured things could never go according to plan with them.

Irene wondered if Mycroft was aware of her relationship with his younger brother. Based on how he was looking at her and his presumption that she was expecting, she guessed that he knew something was amiss about her relationship with Sherlock. No intelligent and insightful man, such as Mycroft Holmes, would let something like that slip past his awareness.

The necessary paperwork was discussed and signed. Pleasantries were not exchanged. Once their purpose for meeting was completed, Irene stood up from her seat and offered her hand to Mycroft to shake it. "Thank you for meeting with me, Mr. Holmes," she said stiffly.

"My pleasure. My brother's estate was always a tricky matter to handle," Mycroft answered.

A house staff member showed Irene out of the house. As she marched back to the waiting car, her emotions started to take control of her. She didn't want to start crying while the driver was able to see or hear her, but once she was in the car, the floodgates opened up.

When she had started this job, when the manager of the facility had called to see if she would be able to help Sherlock, she had had such high hopes. Now, she had done nothing but kill this man. He was less of a human after he met her than before.

Was she a monster, or had things just gone beyond her control? Was the situation an extenuating circumstance, or could she have prevented this? Perhaps, but this was beyond the point. There was nothing more for her to do for Sherlock, so it was time for her to move on.


	10. Chapter 10

There was actually something more Irene could do for Sherlock.

She later thought it was so stupid that she had forgotten this, but she still had a huge promise she had made to Sherlock that she needed to fulfill.

It came to her right before she was curled up in a ball on the floor of her shower, sobbing uncontrollably because she wasn't feeling well. She hadn't been feeling well for some time, but with the stress of losing her job, losing her husband, losing all sense of the world, and then some, it made sense. But when she started to regain humanness but still didn't feel right, all sense she had had of the situation quickly went away.

Irene was crippled by the loss of Sherlock. She had no livelihood left after his death. With his life went her life too.

She had left his belongings in the corner of her flat, ignoring the boxes for at least two months until she decided that she needed to move out of the flat and go somewhere a little more cost effective. Once she started packing, she found the letter from Sherlock that she had pocketed upon coming across it, but later tossed into the boxes of his belongings.

It was one of those things that she never wanted to look at, but felt wholesomely compelled to tear into the envelope and see what it was. It was a curiosity that she knew would be her demise, but despite this, she slid a slender finger under the flap and broke the seal. Sherlock had not done a decent job at sealing the envelope; Irene supposed this was due to his failing health and his dry mouth. With shaking hands, she creased the top flap back and drew the note from the envelope.

_I know why you did it. You had to. As my therapist, as my wife, and as my person, you had to do this. You've known this day was coming the whole time; I did too, but you've always seen this. This has been the subtext of our relationship that you've ever known. _

_Please know that this was never the subtext I had. I never thought of it as the end, but rather, the beginning. Please know that I have never lived more in my life than I did when I was with you. Please know that I am not dying as an empty man, but rather, as a man who has been completely blessed to have been given the opportunity to reconcile the lack of stability and companionship my entire life with the fact that I die as a man who has married a remarkable woman who has the courage and compassion I never had._

_Irrevocably, I am a madman. I see things of this world that do not exist, but hold my view as the truth, because it is. It is the truth. I am a consulting detective who goes out and solves crimes and you are The Woman. You are not a dominatrix or a criminal, but you are cunning, brilliant, and my perfect equal. Do not underestimate what you can do with your life. Do not waste your life away. _

_Do not live your life regretting this choice. I know I don't have much time left, but the time I do have left will not be pleasant. I suppose it was always supposed to end this way, but that's fine. I did everything I wanted to do, and said everything I wanted to say, except for this:_

_Love is not a disadvantage. It never has been and it never will be. _

_My entire life has been spent thinking that love is a disadvantage, and look at me. The man who had never been loved ended up in a mental institute before someone, who could love so deeply without knowing the true fullness of such love, came and loved him. I know my feelings are misplaced in some respect, but I am confident enough in my feelings to say that I love you. I appreciate you, trust you, respect you, and know that you will always be there even though I am no longer there with you. _

_I trust you will know what to do from this point forward. _

_Believe me to be, my beloved companion,_

_Very sincerely yours, _

_Sherlock Holmes_

If Irene hadn't completely lost her ability to handle her emotions prior to reading the letter, she certainly had by the time she reached his scrawled signature. She, and everyone else in this world she lived in, had underestimated Sherlock Holmes for far too long. She had been the closest person to see that he was capable of emotions and normalcy, but even she had been too far from seeing the truth before it was too late.

Struck with her new purpose, or at least a new path to her original purpose, Irene slid the letter back into its envelope and tucked it away in her top desk drawer before she flipped open her computer and spent the next twelve hours furiously working to complete Sherlock's memoirs. By the time she finished, it was eleven o'clock in the evening and she was exhausted. She didn't have time to sleep though; something was still nagging at the back of her head.

Not sure what it was, she just started walking until she reached the nearest chemist, which was two blocks away from her flat. Fortunately, it was open twenty-four hours a day and there were a few other people in the aisles, so it wasn't too strange that Irene would be in the shop at that hour. When she found herself walking past the feminine product aisle, it dawned on her that she hadn't had her period in a while. She had gotten lazy with trying to remember these things with the stress of everything else going on in her life, so she figured that maybe it had come and gone and she had just gone through the motions of the monthly occurrence, but just as a precaution, she picked up a pregnancy test.

If she was exhausted before, by the end of that night, she would be even more exhausted. The test came back positive.

She crawled into the shower and slammed the water on, full-blast. Despite the fact that she was still fully clothed, she sat in the shower and sobbed for an hour before she determined that she had done enough crying and it was time to go to bed.

There was no time to be sad or distraught. Sherlock's last wishes still needed to be tended to, and Irene's life now had a very different course to take that didn't allow for crying like a little girl. Irene needed to be strong, courageous, and compassionate for Sherlock and his ever-growing legacy.


	11. Chapter 11

The longest hours of Irene's life gave way to the most productive time of Irene's life to that point. Absolute misdirection had put her on a track that she had never imagined she'd be on, but took quickly to. She now had a child on the way and was responsible for making sure that she upheld her vow to her husband. Irene came to the realization that her wedding vows were never actually the vows she took when they got married, but rather, much earlier into their relationship, when she promised that the world would know Sherlock's story and hold it as valid, despite the fact that it would never be known as truth.

Beyond working on the manuscript, Irene was able to find another job. Despite the fact that she was no longer legally able to practice psychiatry or psychology, she was able to utilize her experience by going to work for an advertising firm. She had always enjoyed this aspect of psychology, and given the opportunity, she was going to take it. Besides, it was a job and with a baby on the way, she needed one of those.

She moved out of her flat to a new flat that was further out of the city. She examined schools and neighborhood committees and everything and anything that might impact her child's life. With this new focus allowing her to move away from Sherlock's presence in her old life, she was able to gain perspective on the time she had with him. Any other way, and she probably would have never ended up getting the point she was at now: walking through a publishing firm's office with a meeting with a potential editor.

Irene Adler walked down the hallway, one that was seemingly devoid of activity, save for the people working in their offices. She was heading to a meeting with the editor, hoping for a good answer about the manuscript. Never had she felt this nervous before; not even her first interview was this nerve-wracking as this one was.

Emma, the editor, stood as Irene entered the office, and gave her potential client a broad smile. Irene instantly felt insecure about the situation, not sure if she would be offered the book deal. It was a long shot, but maybe there was a chance that Sherlock's words would live on in more than just a series of mad stories that he told Irene during their months together.

She sat down in the chair that the editor indicated to her. The chair was well loved, warm, and comfortable, giving Irene a false sense of security. Emma watched as Irene sat down and crossed her legs, drawing in a deep breath as she nervously tried to gather her bearings. "Ms. Adler, I particularly enjoyed the manuscript. It was rather interesting how you chose to create the character of Sherlock. I was immediately drawn in by his bizarre charm."

Emma thought of Sherlock as being a fictional character. Irene's gut clenched as she realized that these were only made-up stories to people. But then again, they were made up stories. Sherlock never actually lived any of that life, so it was ridiculous of Irene to expect that any of what she transcribed from Sherlock's musings be interpreted as fact. Besides, Sherlock's wish was that his reality be accepted as fiction rather than fact. This was what Sherlock would have wanted.

Irene suddenly felt claustrophobic in this office. It was a perfectly normal office with nice windows and good use of the floor plan, but she couldn't gauge how the conversation with Emma was going. She instantly regretted submitting the manuscript to any publishing houses. These would only end up being bedtime stories she told her unborn child.

Emma must have sensed that Irene was uncomfortable because she stopped talking about what she thought about the manuscript. "Ms. Adler?"

Irene shook herself back to the present. "Sorry?"

"Are you okay? I think I lost you for a moment," Emma laughed.

"Oh… goodness, I'm sorry. I've been distracted lately," Irene explained.

Emma smiled and glanced down at the bump. "I can imagine. How much longer?"

Irene followed Emma's eyes down to her lap. "Three months," she replied.

What fears Irene may have had regarding the manuscript were not realized. As the meeting went on, it became clear that Emma never had any intention of not taking on the Sherlock Holmes project. By the end of the meeting, Irene was crying tears of joy, laughing as she wiped away the tears. Emma was laughing along— visibly surprised by the reaction Irene had had to the news. Emma probably attributed the reaction to Irene's pregnancy hormones, completely ignorant to the fact that Emma had validated Sherlock's life story by accepting it as fiction and allowing Irene to share it with a larger audience.

Things were going to be fine.


	12. Chapter 12

It was mid-May when Irene saw the book in the bookshop, seven months after the meeting with Emma. She was pushing her four-month-old in a pram down the sidewalk when the book in the front window display caught her eye. It startled her; she had never dreamt of the book being so prominent in the window of a bookshop.

"It's an interesting read," a man's voice said from behind her.

She looked over her shoulder to see a sandy-haired man who couldn't have been older than forty-five. "Sorry?"

"The book. It's interesting. One of my patients recommended it to me."

Irene realized that this was John Watson. "John Watson? Dr. John Watson?" Irene asked as she turned to face him.

He looked taken aback by the fact that this woman knew his name. "I'm sorry, have we met?" he asked her.

She nodded. "Irene Adler. We met a little more than a year ago," she explained as she offered her hand to shake his.

John eyed her warily as he began to remember what Irene looked like. "Irene Adler… the woman who came in with the man who thought he knew me?"

"One in the same," Irene confirmed. "How have you been?"

He shrugged. "I'm fine. How is your friend?"

Irene glanced down at the pram. "Currently, asleep."

John chuckled. "No… the gentleman you brought in."

"Oh…" Irene breathed. "He passed away several months ago. About a year, actually. Only a few weeks after we visited your office."

John's face softened. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I hope he didn't suffer."

She inhaled and shifted uncomfortably. "Well, it depends on your definition of suffering," she explained hesitantly. "His last few hours were not pleasant."

John seemed to understand Irene's meaning and therefore did not inquire further. He did, however, try to remember what Irene's friend was named. For some reason, he was convinced the friend was named Sherlock, but that could have been because he had just read Arthur Conan Doyle's book regarding a gentleman named Sherlock Holmes. And strangely enough, the book was written from the perspective of a man named John Watson, who, even more bizarre, bore a lot of resemblance to him. "Sherlock Holmes was real, wasn't he?"

Irene froze. "Sorry?"

"His name, your friend, was Sherlock Holmes, wasn't it?"

She nodded slightly. "It was his last wish to have his memoir written down and presented as fiction since no one would ever believe it to be true."

John looked confused before he broke out into a smile. "Now, I would have never thought of something like that. That's bloody brilliant," he exclaimed.

Irene laughed, probably the first time in a while that wasn't because of the something the baby did. "Yes, it is rather genius, isn't it?"

They stood nodding around, not really sure what to say next, for a moment or so before John pulled out his phone. "I've actually got to get back to the clinic, but I'd love to get coffee sometime. Would you be up for that?"

Irene was surprised by this. A man asking her out despite the fact that he could see she had a child? She wasn't sure what he meant by it, but she was curious to see how accurate, if at all, Sherlock had been about Dr. John Watson. "Um… sure, I'd love to," she answered.

After exchanging contact info, Irene and John parted ways. As Irene briefly watched John walk off in the opposite direction, she thought back to the moment she had first met Sherlock. She now knew that he had had her calculated down to a tee, but from her perspective, she thought she knew a lot about Sherlock while she really hadn't at all. Now, she thought she knew John based on Sherlock ahd told her, but she knew that that wasn't the case at all; not a lot of what Sherlock talked about could have been real. She was going to have to get to know John all over again, and possibly poke holes in all of Sherlock's argument.

Despite this, she was ready for this. She was ready to move forward. This was part of helping Sherlock, after all.

Once John had rounded the corner and was no longer visible, Irene glanced down into the pram and saw the baby staring at her intently with Sherlock's eyes. She smiled back at the child and gave the baby a quick pat on the belly before continuing on her way down the street, continuing on in this new life that Sherlock Holmes had lead her to.

End.

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A/N: Well, that was probably the shortest fic I've written to this point. And it was kind of fun... in a very strange way. I'm in finals mode right now, so any other stories I've put on the back-burner will remain there until next week, once I'm all done with finals and moving out of the dorm. One year of college down, somewhere between three and 12 to go.

I hope you enjoyed the story!

-soulofair


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